To The Moon

$Apple(AAPL)$ Apple’s Wall Street woes continued Tuesday as shares of the iPhone maker headed toward their lowest level in more than four months as investor anxiety mounts about Apple’s artificial intelligence efforts and its slumping China business. Apple stock fell more than 2% shortly after market open to as low as $170.20, registering its lowest price since Nov. 1, and heading toward its fifth consecutive losing session. The primary catalyst for Tuesday’s losses was a report from Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research indicating iPhone sales fell 24% year-over-year over the first six weeks of 2024, an unwelcome finding considering China accounts for more than 15% of Apple’s revenues and sales in the region already fell 13% in Apple’s most recent quarter, on an annual basis. The reported slump in iPhone sales in China, which builds on the slow iPhone growth narrative weighing on Apple earlier this year, coincides with mounting analyst concerns about Apple falling behind its big tech peers in AI. Apple stock has returned -11% year-to-date and 14% over the last 12 months, which is far worse than the S&P 500 (up 8% year-to-date, 29% over the past year). Apple shares “are at a crossroads,” declared Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett in a Tuesday note to clients, hypothesizing Apple may have lost its “luster” on Wall Street following its sunsetting of its electric vehicle project and the “uninspiring” launch of its Vision Pro mixed reality headset. BIG NUMBER $368 billion. That’s how much market capitalization Apple has lost in 2024, bringing its valuation to $2.6 trillion and causing Apple to lose its mantle as the world’s most valuable company to Microsoft. Microsoft and Nvidia, the world’s third-largest firm, have gained about $240 billion and $920 billion in market value year-to-date, respectively.